LIttle Tommy Riddle - Darkness before the Dawn

[Steve]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "Catlady (Rita Prince
Winston)" <catlady at w...> wrote:
> ...edited...
> 
> So it is less clear to me that having been brought up in a 
> family would have made a difference in how he turned out. As
> a baby, he should have been picked up and cuddled and loved. 
> The nursemaids would have done so, except he was an off-putting 
> strange child who never cried and didn't like being cuddled. I 
> think that could be off-putting to a parent, too, especially a 
> parent who's already busy with a flock of other small children.
>

bboyminn:

I have to wonder if some of Merope's morose depression didn't carry
over into baby Tom. We know that mother and child share (to some
extent) a common body chemistry while the baby is still in the womb.
Depression causes certain chemical reations in the body; changes in
neurotransmiters, hormonal imbalances, etc....

I really think part of Tom's problem is that while he developed in the
womb, that state of morose dark melacholy depression was conditioned
into him as 'normal'. From that point on, Tom has been fighting a
state of depression and probably paranoia and likely a subconscious
sense of guilt that has colored his entire life.

However, if he had been conceived in a happy home, he would not have
had that residual chronic depression conditioning his pre-birth
developement, and he likely would have been a happy normal baby boy.
Still may have been a bit Slytherin-ish, but that in itself is not a
crime, and indeed is not even bad. 

I guess I can't prove it true, but the indication are there. For
example, the fact that he did not fuss or cry as an infant. That tells
me, he is carrying the same dark emptiness and sense of failure and
unworthiness that Merope carried. 

It's just a thought.

Steve/bboyminn